Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ramblings

Toy Story 3

After some gentle ribbing to do something with the blog I find myself sitting before the good old laptop with my bottle of water and some old anime soundtracks playing in the background. So what shall I write about?

Right now my folks are out of town and I’ve been left to my own devises here at the house. So yesterday I decided to do a me-day and I went out to the library and then to the mall. I ended up coughing up the $9 to see Toy Story 3 at the 3D Imax.

Since hearing about the movie last year, I was feeling pretty negative about it. After all, how many times can you recycle the plot of toys separated and somehow making their way back to their owner? However, I was very surprised and pleased with the movie overall. The detail was of course, pixar fantastic. Their texture artists really took things a step beyond and gave some real nit-and-grit to the characters.

The story line was pretty touching as well. And the gags were not overly used. And I was also pretty happy with the opening where Andy is playing with the toys and you really do find yourself thinking that this was truly something from a young boy’s imagination.

I ended up calling my mom and telling her to go out with my dad to see it that night. Hopefully they did. And I’d really recommend it to anyone else out there. I think they put a good cap onto the series and I even cried a bit. Definately a movie worth the 9 bucks.

In-Game Relations

I've been rather uncertain about what to do recently. Over the past month its been a growing issue where more comments are made about other people or guilds who don't match the expectations of people within the guild. And generally, when comments are made to those within the guild, it comes back to bite me (instead of them) in the ass. Even when I'm not even aware of the issues, I'm held accountable for what they've said.

I take my word and reputation very seriously. Possibly its something I picked up from my dad. But I feel that how I am perceived by others is very important when it comes to being a leader. Last night I had a fairly heavy discussion with my priest officer about things and even passed him GM when it felt like he wasn’t really listening to what I was trying to say. He doesn’t view things like I do and its frusterating to try to get him to see what I’m getting at.

So what brought me to that point? One of the things I spend a lot of time doing is talking to members and assuring them of other’s intentions and beliefs and good natures. However, recently it has felt that after I have these conversations I come back later and find out that those people I spoke so highly of have basically done the opposite. And in a way, I guess I feel betrayed that my higher expectation of them never came through.

Like, I just had a newer member of the guild delete some events on our guild calendar. It has happened before and probably will happen with anyone not used to guilds using the calendar. They think that deleting will just remove their name from the event. But instead they’ve just removed the entire event from the calendar. (( Unfortunately I cannot stop that from happening. In order for guild members to be able to make their own events, I have to let the ranks have guild calendar control. ))

Anyway, a number of people made a pretty big deal over it. The guy apologized and was pretty embarrassed and I assured him that folks would understand and that it was easy enough to put back up. And what happens?

Yesterday morning I went to see a movie. Typical of movies, I left feeling sick and when I got home, I went to bed. When I got online later that night I'm met with an in-game mail from this young man who was pretty angry. About how he'd logged in to a guild message of the day directed at him and an in-game mail calling him an asshole with the implication that what he'd done was deliberate in his box. And then I myself found the person who had facilitated all of this had also posted an additional 'question' to the application for the guild.

Not knowing I had already talked with the new member about how the calendar worked, the officer had gone off the words of his friend who had his events deleted and made the guild message. And it had been the guild member who had written the message to the young man. But in the end I was viewed as the one to blame about the situation. Partially fueled by the recent conversation where I had assured him that the other people would be mature about it. And I guess, partially assumed that as GM i should have been stopping the incident somehow.

But it is situations like this that are really leaving me drained and just feeling sick and tired of guild politics. And unsure really of what road I should be taking. Because the entire thing just makes me so angry and frustrated. And when I approach things under those emotional influences, it just makes things worse. its just ...

It just feels like no matter how nice and police and gracious I try to be with people I will always end up being the one responsible in guild if someone does something to someone else. Because I am the GM and it happens in my guild – obviously it must be something I am alright with doing. And so they come to me angry about things that have been done and demanding change. And outside the guild, they don’t hold the people who wronged them in the FB responsible. Instead they target me.

In conversation with my priest officer last night I told him that I feel there is nothing I can do in the situation. Because he and the other officers and members have shown such vocal resistance to further restraint – I cannot exactly stop them from being what I feel are jerks to other members. And the same time, I cannot convince these people that it isn’t my fault for them being attacked. Because as GM I should be able to hold these people accountable.

My priest officer told me that I should just stop allowing people to get me so upset when it comes to my reputation like this. And that they weren’t people that mattered. And it moved us into an entire conversation. He feels that we should focus on making the raiders happy and appreciate all the things they’ve been doing for us. But I feel that regardless of being a raider or not, they’re still people. And douche or not too, I can’t bring myself to being terrible mean back to them.

Even when I know they’re sitting there spitting at my back. Its just not someone I feel I can be.Because I have such a huge distaste for the elitist, egotistical person who sits and makes fun and/or belittles others for personal amusement. It takes someone who has slandered me to utterly and terribly to make me feel more vindictive.

In the end the GM was passed back to me. The priest officer insisted that no one could be GM as well as me. And that people responded better to me because when I did put people ‘in place’ people listened because they knew I was always sincere when I did it and respected that – whereas they tended to fall back into things faster when it was him. And he told me that I should try to not let people get to me so much. And I know he’s right on that last point.But I need to decide on how to approach this growing issue before things have a chance to become worse. I do not want to be like the old big guilds.

Other Relations

I’m also struggling a lot with how some of the guildies are interacting with folks outside the guild. The idea that we’re better than everyone else and should be able to talk however we like towards them is something I trying to push out of guild attitude. I don’t want to see it going on. I remember when the guild was a smaller one struggling through SSC back in BC. And how those bigger guilds would talk down to us and belittle us and how I felt about how their members would troll and trash other people in trade. I didn’t think well of those people. I didn’t admire those people or feel encouraged to be better guild because they seemed cool.

Last week I laid out a challenge to my guild members – go out and do something nice for someone not in the guild. Screen shot it and post it in the forums. Only a handful of people have done this at this point. Ideally, I wanted to fight the people who were saying the alliance was dead etc – and use the guild to encourage those outside it about the alliance. And secondly, I was hoping it would encourage members to be nicer and friendlier to those outside the guild.

And ultimately, I would just like to see some of my members treating the community and one another better. Perhaps I’m taking this all way too serious. But I strongly believe this and try to live by it (though I may not always succeed) : Treat others the way you would like to be treated. If you won’t like something done to you, don’t do it to them.

Administrative assistant in an accounting office by day, and gamer by night. I’ve been playing various games online in some form or another for the past 15 years – from my time role playing Star Trek in AOL chat rooms to today’s current MMOs and games. Currently I am a media consultant for TalkTyria.com and am not actively playing any MMOs. I tend to take things way too serious, but it's part of who I am. So heads up as you read!